Another Fire in the Hole
by MSCSIFANGSR
Summary: Short story set after 'Bulletville' 1x12. Boyd POV. Rated for irreverence, language, mentions of child abuse and things that go 'boom' in the night.


TITLE: Another Fire in the Hole  
AUTHOR: MSCSIFANGSR aka Chauncey10  
FANDOM/SHIP: Justified/Boyd Crowder  
RATING: M for irreverence, language, mentions of mild child abuse and things that go 'boom' in the night.  
DISCLAIMER: I don't own them, I just play with them.  
SPOILERS: Post-episode "Bulletville" Episode 1x12  
NOTES: Written for the FOX_LAS Challenge on LJ in November 2010.

* * *

His father's casket had been lowered into the ground amid words of grace from the minister and soon everyone who had attended the funeral had nodded in condolence then shuffled off to their cars and left the countryside cemetery. Boyd Crowder stood stoically looking at the newly covered grave with tears of pain flowing unencumbered down his face.

He cried for everything that had happened in his father's life, for things that never happened, and for things that never would. Losing his only remaining parent was especially hard on Boyd considering he'd also buried his only sibling earlier in the year. His mother had died when he'd been a child. His cousin, Johnny had been buried the day before. The only person still living was his brother Boman's widow, but since Ava was not available to him and happened to be fucking his buddy, Raylan, Boyd was alone in the world.

He continued to cry as the cemetery workers completed their duties. Several of the older men in the crew withdrew without comment having seen many such breakdowns, but one of the younger men stared at Boyd as if he needed to be committed to a psych-unit. After they had all left, Boyd was left with alone with his estranged and now, dearly-departed father.

After several hours and the dawning realization that the sun had set for the day, Boyd moved slowly to his father's old Fleetwood Cadillac. He paused before opening the door as a memory from the day his father had bought the car flitted through his brain:

"Daddy! Daddy! Why don't you get that fancy Mercedes over there? We got enough money to get it, don't we?" The young Boyd pointed across the used car lot to a newer model foreign car.

Bo Crowder snatched his son up by the arm and swung the 10- year-old boy up until the two of them were face-to-face, eye-to-eye. In a voice that could have been God's booming down from heaven over thunder and the roar of many waters, Bo explained in no uncertain terms: "I'm an American and I will drive an American car." Bo then threw the boy he down onto the heavily encrusted dirt and stepped over him to shake hands with the used car salesman.

Boyd snapped out of his reverie, opened the door and got into the car. He wasn't sure where he was headed and when he ended up at his father's old home place, he wasn't entirely surprised. The house was dilapidated to the point of being contemned. For a man like his father, appearances were often deceiving. He lived in relative squalor, while he cleared nearly $3 million a year from drug trafficking and his very profitible protection service. His image of a 'good ole boy' was merely his cover; Bo had never become pretentious with his money. And he never trusted banks, relying on the tried and true methods of his father and grandfather: he buried it.

Boyd wasn't concerned for the money. He knew where most of it was buried and if he needed it, it wouldn't be a problem getting it.

Boyd sat down in the old leather Lazy-Boy recliner and let memories of his life wash over him. Sometime late in the night but before midnight, his hand had wandered down into the flap on the side of the chair. He felt something rather large, square and heavy, so he pulled whatever it was out. In his hands, he held the old Crowder Family Bible.

He held it reverently for a few moments. With his palm face down on the cover of the battered bible, he prayed for the last time, fervently for his father's soul. He then opened the bible to the family tree page and stared at all the names of Crowder's before him, even his own name and birthday were written in the faded ink. He contemplated his own mortality, given everyone who was listed was now deceased. And he silently wondered who had been the person who had written his information into the bible. He considered getting a pen and writing down his father and cousin's death dates, but paused when an entirely different idea flitted through his brain.

An idea as monstrous and as well as appropriate suddenly came upon him. He smiled at the simplicity and the utter justice of it all. He then shot out of the chair, the bible sprawling about on the floor. Boyd gunned the Cadillac toward his old hideout in the hills when he'd been a minister and leader of his former rag-tag followers and hastily dug up his rocket launcher and some ammunition and quickly returned to his father's house. Boyd parked the Cadillac in front of the house and went to the trunk and pulled the Chinese bazooka out.

He carefully loaded the weapon and then paced out 75 yards from the front of the house and then smiled snidely to himself and shouted, "Fire in the hole," and fired.

Boyd Crowder cried for the last time as he watched his father's house and car explode in a blaze of fire. He then disappeared into the woods, swallowed by the darkness.

* * *

THE END

* * *

Would love some feeback-good or bad.


End file.
